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Raise the Puissant Sanctum

Celestial Circle of Sapphire

Cost: 30mTarget: Demesne

The Lunar and Sidereal Exalted rarely have the luxury of huge crews of workmen to build their manses. The Lunars demand self-sufficiency, and the Sidereals desire secrecy. This rite provides both. A sorcerer can raise a manse from a demesne rated no higher than (her Essence – 2).

Armed with a design for the manse she wishes to create (see Exalted, p. 133 for the rules on designing manses), the sorcerer enters the demesne. For a number of weeks equal to the rating of the manse to be raised, she studies the plans and visualizes the structure she intends to create. The sorcerer must remain attuned to the demesne for this entire time of reflection and interact with no companion but the manse’s designer (if she didn’t design it herself).

Once she is prepared, the sorcerer casts the spell and feeds her Essence into the demesne. The land then reshapes itself. Stone rises to form walls, sand crystallizes into glass, and plants grow into the geomantic patterns needed to channel the demesne’s Essence. This Shaping effect takes six hours per dot of the intended manse and requires incredible concentration on the part of the sorcerer.

During this process, the demesne must remain undisturbed, with no intruders. The arrival of another sentient being can destroy the subtle flows of Essence (as if an attack had come during the Shape Celestial Circle Sorcery actions). When the new manse is complete, the sorcerer sits in the room where its hearthstone is starting to form (though the magical stone takes the normal time to develop).

Should the sorcerer not possess a set of plans, she may still create a manse. In this case, however, she cannot cap demesnes rates more than (her Essence – 3). Seating herself in the demesne, she casts the spell as normal. Instead of following the schematics of a savant-engineer, however, she lets Creation itself shape the manse, based on what hearthstone she wants it to create. Such a manse lacks the amenities of man-made structures. Floors are seldom flat, doorways and windows are rarely placed for convenience, and indoor plumbing is impossible.

Savants who think that demesnes are the tertiary souls of Gaia believe that such manses are shaped by the will and need of that soul. Indeed, more than one such manse has demonstrated some function unintended by the shaping sorcerer. Lunar sorcerers sometimes prefer to raise “natural” manses out of respect for Gaia.